Grow Create Inspire

Crystal Stevens is an herbalist, writer, artist, and vegetable farmer, employing multiple platforms to share her passion for inspiring others to care for the environment, to grow gardens, and to live healthy lifestyles. She runs dozens of community outreach programs each year, hosting field trips and homeschool groups to the farm, and teaching a gardening summer camp for kids, and travels to various schools to teach the gardening curriculum which she developed. She teaches dozens of workshops and gives presentations on gardening, healthy eating, natural living, medicinal herbs and foraging. Together with her husband Eric Stevens, Crystal co-manages La Vista Farm, a CSA serving 150 families. They live along the bluffs of the Mississippi River in Godfrey IL with their two children.

In Grow Create Inspire, Crystal Stevens has skillfully tied the seemingly mundane—how to grow food, cook, shop, stay healthy—to our deepest spiritual and transformative aspirations. In clear and often poetic language, she chronicles her own journey toward a more self-reliant yet deeply interconnected life, and makes this story useful to all of us by sharing the recipes, techniques, and lessons she has learned or created along the way. For anyone interested in homesteading, skill building, and creating community, this book is an inspirational roadmap from a guide who has blazed her own path toward sustainability.--- Toby Hemenway, author, Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture and The Permaculture CityThe perfect read for anyone searching to transform their time on this earth into a truly satisfying journey! Crystal Stevens’ passion for the natural order shimmers throughout the text to energize and inspire, while her knowledge and experience encapsulate the whys and how-to’s in the form of lists and anecdotal examples. Certainly a powerful antidote for these times of decadent destruction -- full of wise words and useful suggestions to help recreate Eden here on Earth.---Jenni Blackmore, author, Permaculture for the Rest of Us and The Food Lover’s GardenGrow Create Inspire embodies the hopeful, do-it-yourself attitude that Mother Earth News has encouraged for more than 40 years. We’re honored that Crystal has found inspiration in our publication and has transformed our ideals into a free-spirited, accessible plan for improving the health of the Earth, our communities, and our own bodies and souls.---Hannah Kincaid, Senior Editor, Mother Earth NewsA healthy relationship between human society and the natural world begins with a healthy relationship between individual humans and the natural world. Crystal Stevens’s Grow Create Inspire is as good a guide to understanding the building books of that relationship as you are going to find.---H. Emerson Blake, OrionGrow Create Inspire reads like a friendly chat with a dear friend who is full of sage advice, shares fascinating experiences, and has lots of great recipes to share.-- Deborah Niemann, author, Homegrown and Handmade and Raising Goats NaturallyGrow, Create, Inspire is an excellent reminder and guide for the importance being connected to our food and ultimately the earth. She simplifies the power of our consumption and the important link to earth stewardship through outlining clear goals any household can achieve.---Dr. Julia Stevens, Microbial Ecologist, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences